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2691 discussions

digital TV antennas
by ke6dcj 22 Jan '09

22 Jan '09

Hey guys & gals, I received this DTV antenna question from a friend who's having problems with her setup. My only thinking is that the amplifier has raised the "noise floor" all around, and now that's she's higher, she's more directional. I'm recommending removing the amplifier. What do you think ? 73's, Neil / KE6DCJ ================== I am having a problem with my antenna and TV setups here. As mentioned before, I have been running off an antenna hanging inside the garage just over the roof of the Mercedes. I live not quite in a direct line between Chicago and Milwaukee. Heading of 172 degrees and 57 miles to Chicago, and 358 degrees and about 30 miles to Milwaukee. The antenna was pointing (roughly) at Chicago, I got most of the Chicago stations very well, most of the time. (CBS is always bad). And most of the time, I also got Milwaukee just fine. Once in a while, with bad weather, one city's stations or the other would not come in as well. But some of these are duplicate's (like 2 ABC stations etc.), so on the whole it worked well. Well about a month ago, I decided to "improve the situation". I moved the antenna up to the roof, so it has an increased height of about 20 or more. I also installed a rotator and an amplifier. The cable run is no longer, but because of the amplifier, there are two more carefully checked connections. I wanted to do this before the permanent winter accumulation of snow had deposited itself on the roof. It is now snowed over. Now when I point the antenna at Chicago, I get the Chicago stations very well, even better than before. BUT, I cannot receive the Milwaukee stations at all. And the same for the other directions. Point it at Milwaukee, cannot see the Chicago stations. So you ask, what's the problem? In order to watch ANY station on either of the TVs, you have to do a channel scan. You CANNOT add a station that is not found by the TV in its automatic scan. You can subtract a channel, but not add one. You cannot even punch the the numbers (like 04.1) for a channel that was not found and loaded into the menu by the automatic scan. SO, if I point the antenna at Chicago and do the scan, I can only watch those stations until I rotate the antenna and rerun the automatic scan (a process that can take 10-15 minutes) if I want to watch a Milwaukee station. And the stations are not all duplicates, and I really want the ability to receive both. It is so frustrating !!!! And I don't get why the "bi-directional" reception has degraded so much, when the individual channels (in the specific direction) seem to have improved ??? I know that there are many experts on everything on this list ......... any ideas.

2 1

digital TV antennas
by neils 21 Jan '09

21 Jan '09

Hey guys, I received this from a friend who's having problems with her digital TV setup. My only thinking is that the amplifier has raised the "noise floor" all around, and now that's she's higher, she's more directional. I'm recommending removing the amplifier. What do you think ? 73's, Neil / KE6DCJ ================== I am having a problem with my antenna and TV setups here. As mentioned before, I have been running off an antenna hanging inside the garage just over the roof of the Mercedes. I live not quite in a direct line between Chicago and Milwaukee. Heading of 172 degrees and 57 miles to Chicago, and 358 degrees and about 30 miles to Milwaukee. The antenna was pointing (roughly) at Chicago, I got most of the Chicago stations very well, most of the time. (CBS is always bad). And most of the time, I also got Milwaukee just fine. Once in a while, with bad weather, one city's stations or the other would not come in as well. But some of these are duplicate's (like 2 ABC stations etc.), so on the whole it worked well. Well about a month ago, I decided to "improve the situation". I moved the antenna up to the roof, so it has an increased height of about 20 or more. I also installed a rotator and an amplifier. The cable run is no longer, but because of the amplifier, there are two more carefully checked connections. I wanted to do this before the permanent winter accumulation of snow had deposited itself on the roof. It is now snowed over. Now when I point the antenna at Chicago, I get the Chicago stations very well, even better than before. BUT, I cannot receive the Milwaukee stations at all. And the same for the other directions. Point it at Milwaukee, cannot see the Chicago stations. So you ask, what's the problem? In order to watch ANY station on either of the TVs, you have to do a channel scan. You CANNOT add a station that is not found by the TV in its automatic scan. You can subtract a channel, but not add one. You cannot even punch the the numbers (like 04.1) for a channel that was not found and loaded into the menu by the automatic scan. SO, if I point the antenna at Chicago and do the scan, I can only watch those stations until I rotate the antenna and rerun the automatic scan (a process that can take 10-15 minutes) if I want to watch a Milwaukee station. And the stations are not all duplicates, and I really want the ability to receive both. It is so frustrating !!!! And I don't get why the "bi-directional" reception has degraded so much, when the individual channels (in the specific direction) seem to have improved ??? I know that there are many experts on everything on this list ......... any ideas.

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Electronic "Stuff" Garage Sale on Saturday
by Marvin Johnston 20 Jan '09

20 Jan '09

Hi everyone, Continuing with the moving of "stuff", I'm having a garage sale this Saturday, January 24th, in the front yard. There will be a lot of industrial control type stuff, electronic parts, shrink tubing, probably non-working test equipment, inexpensive crystal controlled HTs, and lots more. Anything that I consider to be junk, i.e. stuff for parts, will be either gone to that electronic scrapyard in the sky or put in a free pile that will end up at the dump. Since I have friends that are in the same boat as I am, we might be able to match the amount of "stuff" we try to have at the SBARC bazaar depending on how much "stuff" they want to get rid of. The sale starts about 8:00AM and will continue on to noon or thereabouts at my house located at: 408 Grove Lane Santa Barbara, CA 93105 Thanks! Marvin, KE6HTS

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Narda Model 369bnm High Power Termination
by Marvin Johnston 19 Jan '09

19 Jan '09

Hi everyone, I have a number of Narda Model 369BNM high power terminations (currently 8 or so.) These are rated at 175 watts for the range of .7 to 18 GHz. The fact that they start at .7 GHz implies they are not suitable for HF or VHF work. You can get more information on the Narda website at: http://www.nardamicrowave.com/east/index.php?m=Products&e=details&id=1227 A bit of Google research shows the asking price to be $175.00 - $275.00, but these are available for $20.00 each (the person I'm selling them for wants to see them gone.) Give me an email *soon* if you are interested as I'll be contact some surplus dealers about these tomorrow. This $20.00 price is for SBARC members only.

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Building an Awesome Hamfest
by Marvin Johnston 18 Jan '09

18 Jan '09

This morning, I was reading Seth Godin's Blog (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/01/love-and-annoyi.html) and his first paragraph is absolutely great: "The goal is to create a product that people love. If people love it, they'll forgive a lot. They'll talk about it. They'll promote it. They'll come back. They'll be less price sensitive. They'll bring their friends. They'll work with you to make it better." This is one of the best descriptions I've ever read describing what I'd like to see happen with our hamfest. Building our hamfest so people love the concepts and are willing to tell their friends (and everyone they meet) about it is what we should all be working towards. And if this concept of product love is expanded throughout the ham community, people new to our hobby will be far more likely to get involved. What would make product love a part of our Hamfest for you? Please feel free to leave your thoughts and comments on the Santa Barbara Section Hamfest forum at: http://www.sbhamfest.com Marvin, KE6HTS PS - The second part of the blog post deals with making the product less annoying to promote the product. In our case, this looks like taking giant steps backwards!

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January SBARC Meeting Tonight!
by Michael Ditmore 16 Jan '09

16 Jan '09

SBARC MEETING TONIGHT! Don't miss a fascinating presentation: RADIO ASTRONOMY ON A SHOESTRING The Giant Millimeter Radio Telescope - 50 meter diameter parabolic dish operating up to 350 GHz A talk and demonstration by Jiri Polivka and his "pocket sun" 7:30 PM Friday, Tonight, January 16 Goleta School Administration Building, 401 North Fairview Visitors welcome – Bring a friend – Bring Several! Michael W7HUT

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SB Section Hamfest Forum is up for testing
by Marvin Johnston 13 Jan '09

13 Jan '09

Hi everyone, The hamfest forum is up and running at http://www.sbhamfest.org. The forum is double opt-in, i.e., you will receive an email after registering that will allow you to post to most of the forums. As a guest, you should be able to read everything but the Organizers Forum (Private for the oganizers.) Since everything is still in a state of flux, things will most likely change. But at least we are started! FYI, we are using phpbb for the open source forum software, the domains sbhamfest.org and sbhamfest.com were registered with godaddy.com, and they are being hosted at hostgater.com. The sbhamfest.org domain is still dormant until I transfer it to hostgater and have it automatically forward to the .com site. I registered both sites more as a hedge against someone else getting the .org domain. Setting up the forum was *evenutally* a piece of cake. Hostgater has something called fantastico that took care of the software installation. Still left to do is to make sure the site is optimized for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) although exactly what keywords I'll be using is still up in the air right now. Finally, I am checking out Google adwords PPC advertising to see if the ROI is sufficient to justify running an adwords campaign. As things evolve, the URL will open onto a conventional website with a link to the forums from the main website. Additionally, I will probably start a blog there where I will talk about how the hamfest is developing along with anything else I might think is important to talk about. Thanks! Marvin, KE6HTS

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For code enthusiasts
by kc6nah＠juno.com 11 Jan '09

11 Jan '09

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Tube Tester
by Dennis H. Morales 31 Dec '08

31 Dec '08

Thanks to everyone that responded. The tester has found a good home. 73 de Denny AD6EZ<><

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HeathKit Tube Tester - Very old!
by Dennis H. Morales 30 Dec '08

30 Dec '08

Hi All - I am cleaning out my equipment stash and it's time to get rid of an old HeathKit TC-1 Dynamic Tube Checker. I am hoping that someone out there is a collector or can actually use this thing. I've had it since High School - 1959 +/- I also have a small box - about 10"x10" of used vacuum tubes that I need to get rid of also. Here is a pic of the checker: While I'm at it, I have a Hellicrafter S-40A receiver that needs to be restored. Does anyone out there know of anyone that does that kind of work? I hate to get rid of it but I may if I cannot get it working again. I've had this radio before I acquired the above tube checker/tester! Thanks es 73 to all . Denny AD6EZ <>< Goleta, CA

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